article posted Dec 21, 14:48

The perennial (or cyclical?) appeal of certain authors make them the targets of a particular kind of young male reader, one is told .

Funnily enough I remember browsing at my local mega-machine bookstore and finding a locked glass case containing Camus, some Beat Writers, some Hemingway and Amis (among others) standing out in the middle of the floor.

I asked a sales person why they’d taken such an unusual approach to merchandising… and was told that these were the most frequently pinched titles in the store. Hence the locked case.

Funny how the narratives of youthful alienation call up their own doom… or maybe its just that alienated adolescent guys are always willing to do something foolish.